December 2011

It’s been over 3 months since I stepped off the Colorado Trail. (Read about my adventure from the beginning.) I miss it every single day. I miss the simplicity of the lifestyle, of having just the bare essentials and being thankful for them, of being so tuned in with my senses. I miss waking up in the morning excited at what adventures the day would hold, what sites I’d see, of being so incredibly aware of the weather. I miss eating lunch with amazing views or by a bubbling brook. I miss the feeling of my legs and hips getting tired as I cranked out the miles but then feeling refreshed and ready to hike again the next morning. I miss meeting trail angels like Paul and Neil and Patty and the high energy athletic atmosphere of the Leadville Hostel. I miss being around others with the enthusiasm for not just long distance hiking but a zest for life itself. I wish the trail continued for another 500 miles.

But the trail ended. And it was back to reality. And boy did reality hit hard. Exactly one week after I returned home hurricane Lee hit and I had 5 feet of water in the basement of my repair shop. I lost a good bit of supplies and equipment. I had returned home already not in the mood to be repairing. Now I was faced with rebuilding a repair shop that I really didn’t want to rebuild. Time to suck it up and put on my big girl panties.

Friends pitched in a great deal of time to help me get everything carted out of the basement, scrub down the entire basement, and then scrub what was salvageable. It’s now three months later and almost everything is cleaned up. There’s still some work to be done in putting things back to a more efficient workflow but the shop is at least operational.

It’s been a long three months….three months that I never want to have to repeat. But I’m once again waking up in the morning excited at possibilities that the day holds and at the things I’ll learn. That’s because I’ve started a new trail….a trail just as exciting as the Colorado Trail….a deeper dive into web development. More on this later.